The Story of Us

Monday, September 17, 2012

Fishes and Bows

So this weekend I had a wedding down in Coldwater near the Indiana border. I was able to convince Ben (with much bribery) to help me assist this wedding and we could spend the night somewhere and take our time coming back. It was actually a pretty awesome wedding with a laid back country style. Perfect for us. So Ben came and we had fun watching all the line dances going on at the reception. Seriously haven't seen so much lone dancing ever. Wish we had a line dancing bar around here or some place where friends can hang out and do that. It looked like so much fun! So Ben and I stayed down in Battle Creek for the night and somewhere in the area there must of been a hot rod show because our hotel had some really old vintage hot rods which was pretty cool. Although Ben wasn't the happiest when they woke him up in the morning with their roaring engines. Although it did sound pretty sweet. From there we headed over to a small, small town west of Kalamazoo to go to a archery shop. Ben needed a specific part for his bow and so we had to look up a Matthews dealer. We were both very glad I told him to look up shops in Kalamazoo because this shop was really cool and I got to shoot 4 or 5 bows and spend time on the range. I have only shot 1 arrow from 1 bow once. So I was really excited. We wanted to get a feel for if I would enjoy it, if I was decently good and what kind of bow I would want. Which we figured out all those things. I really want one except I can't imagine spending that much on just me for a bow. Ben yeah, but not me. I do have a pretty nasty bruise on my arm from getting slapped by the string on the first shot. Ben got his piece and I got to practice so we were both really happy with that stop.
Right across the street from this archery shop was a state park visitors center with a fish hatchery. We were like thats cool so we decided to swing back in there and check it out. Of course its Sunday and wasn't open but there was some trails and a big pond you could walk out over and check out the fish. Well lets just say there was a TON of fish and they were huge. I mean huge. Some of the lake sturgeon were 8 -10ft long and the pike, trout and steelhead were pretty big as well. I think thats right haha I have a hard time remembering all the names. So anyways there was some fish food feeders and Ben was excited so as he ran back to the car to get some quarters I was walking around and noticed the sign for activities. On the board it said Fish Hatchery tour at 12 noon. I was like sweet and ran up to Ben and told him there was a tour starting in 10 minutes! We were pumped! So we walked back up to the gift shop and sure enough they were opening up and getting ready. So we got to walk around the visitors center and museum part and then go on this fish tour. We learned all about them catching the fish, collecting eggs, harvesting the eggs, raising the fish, feeding the fish and then once they get to 8months to a year they take them back out and stock the rivers and lakes with the raised fish so that it helps keep them plentiful and healthy. When we were there, there was over a millions, yes a million steel head being raised. It was so cool to see all the stages of fish at different months and how they grow and it was just so educational and interesting to learn about the fish and also be thankful and proud of our DNR and the research and help they are doing to keep our fish alive and healthy. At the end of our trip Ben and I were definitely so glad we randomly went in that direction and got to stop there at that time and it was just a perfect morning, we had so much fun. It was such a wonderful day to spend just the two of us with nothing to do just taking our time and spending time together since I feel we rarely get quality time together anymore.
We are both sooo looking forward and ready for our anniversary trip this weekend! Yes this weekend! We are leaving Thursday night after we get out of work and are so pumped. We are headed up north to Mackinaw to stay and take some trips to explore the UP and just spend more time together. We are unsure of what the next few months will bring for us and so we want to take advantage of spending as much quality time together as possible. I will definitely have some stories and pictures to share from this coming weekend!

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About Me

I have been married for almost 5 years to an amazing man, I am a brand new mother to our beautiful 3 month old daughter and this blog is my story of the chaos. I am a part time photographer and full time gymnastics coach.